I understand it isn't broken. That's not the question. What is a problem for Microsoft is the idea that if it isn't broken you shouldn't be spending to get better. That's something they need to change in their customer base.
They did it with Vista only partially. Originally Vista (Longhorn) was going to be much more demanding on hardware than XP had been. The idea was the XP would be for older systems while Longhorn would have more aggressive requirements (like 2g RAM min).
That would have allowed:
a) a 3D graphics card mandatory interface (Aero but without the low hardware mode supported)
b) A database filesystem (i.e. a small version of SQL server included with every version of Windows available to applications)
c) hardware support for video and audio extensions (like you have an Apple).
They chickened out and Vista wasn't popular. Windows8 should have been touchscreen mandatory.
Because we don't report Microsoft's success. Over Jan 2013 - April 2014 they got it from 35% of the market down to 8% of the market. A huge win that showed when they do want to push, and hold their guns they can move the market. Goes against the wisdom that Microsoft is helpless.
No they don't. They just don't support old hardware and start breaking this culture of backwards compatibility they've built up. They've encouraged their customers for far too long to buy bad hardware and then run it forever. They don't have to do that.
I think we agree on the strategy while disagreeing on the terminology. Using Word for example I'd consider it light to moderate. While typesetting programs (In Design), document management (Storage IQ)... are the professional versions of Word.
As for your numbers DSLR sales in the USA are about 1.2m / year. There is less than you think.
I'm disagreeing that a noob can work a complex piece of software successful or would often want to. The people who buy DSLRs today are probably the 5% of people most interested in photography. That's already a pretty motivated group. Maybe not motivated enough to crack a book (though I don't understand why people selling a $500 camera can't have a website that teaches the basics well) but motivated. Most of Apple's customers are going to be substantially less motivated than the people who buy a DSLR and never take it of program.
I think they can go noob to moderately interested amateur. But I think you are still overestimating the market.
You are right though that good defaults allow for programs to work well with lots of features. Word (a rather complex program, that everyone knows how to use) being a great example.
I don't think there is anyway to have today's level of complexity in a general usage application. There is too much background required. But if Apple can offer the 15% of features that do 70% of the important work....
Some telescopes are around that resolution or higher. Darpa started working on cameras that are mobile (can be mounted on a satellite) or airplane that are higher resolution (50 gigapixel) years ago and there certainly are working prototypes. Though I suspect he meant 18mb.
What would really stop Apple from stripping the best features from Aperture and putting them into iPhoto?
Complexity. Aperture assume at least a highly interested amateur. iPhoto assumes a general users knowledge of photography. What's good for one type of user is often a negative for the other.
Expose works fine under the new system hit F9. As for spaces you still have virtual desktops and the applications support them better. What's gotten worse? And In particular each physical display has its own set of virtual displays rather than having them span. That's an upgrade.
True but the NSA doesn't care trying people in court. I think that overwhelms everything else they just aren't involved in criminal prosecutions much.
Agreed it wouldn't matter. Though it is worth noting that both the NSA and DEA agree that almost all parallel construction is regarding the DEA not the NSA.
The NSA isn't trying to convict in a court of law. What's admissible matters less to them.
Absolutely, Perl has some organizational features. But many of the techniques that Perl encourages for short programs work against good organization. The longer the program the more strict you want the language to be. The reason people complain is that those features allowed Perl to handle applications style programs without all the features you would want A few bolt ons don't solve Perl's problems. Ultimately an entirely different language the right thing for large projects.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?
